Pictures: Watch out! Florida is a dangerous place to live

This 2012 photo provided by Joe Wasilewski, shows a Nile crocodile that he found in Homestead, Fla. University of Florida researchers recently published a paper showing that captured reptiles in 2009, 2001 and 2014 are Nile crocs. Read more.

(Joe Wasilewski / AP)

Orlando Sentinel

Aug. 13, 2013 9:36 AM PT

Florida has a reputation for being one of the craziest states in the country and it’s not without good reason. We’re hit by hurricanes and tornadoes almost every summer, we have the title of being the lightning strike capital of the country and we’ve got a handful of crazy Florida men and women who’ve made major headlines. Even a relaxing day at the beach can turn wild if you’re invaded by a brain-eating amoeba or impaled by a needlefish. Whether you’re on land or in the sea, there’s most likely something nearby that you should be wary of.

Sure, if you brush up against an oyster bed you’ll get covered in some nasty gashes, but when they’re really dangerous is when you’re eating them. Vibrio vulnificus can be contracted by consuming raw or undercooked shellfish, particularly oysters. Between 1981 and 1992, 72 cases were reported, leaving half of those people dead, making it the leader in deaths from foodborne illness in Florida, according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information . (AHMED JADALLAH / REUTERS)

They’re everywhere, seriously. Any Floridian who’s spent any time outside has suffered the wrath of these winged menaces. Their bites are mostly annoying, but they can carry deadly diseases like West Nile virus, Eastern equine encephalitis, Chikungunya Fever, dengue fever and the Zika virus..

(James Gatheny/AP)

The scariest thing about sinkholes is that you don’t know when or where they’ll pop up. There have been 19,280 known sinkholes in Florida, with Pasco county ranking at the top with 7,210 sinkholes. Pictured is a sinkhole that developed in Tampa in March and swallowed a man who was sleeping in his home. Even more recently, a sinkhole 15-foot-deep swallowed a building at a resort near Disney World. Click here for a map of reported sinkholes across the state. (SCOTT AUDETTE / REUTERS)

Hear us out: otters are vicious. They make look cute and cuddly but add a bit of rabies into the mix and you’ve got yourself a killing machine. Take, for example, the 96-year-old Sarasota man who was attacked by a rabid otter for about six minutes as a good samaritan tried to beat it off. The threat of rabies applies to all of Florida’s animals: raccoons, foxes, coyotes and pretty much anything else with a spinal cord. (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

Florida is No. 1 in the country for sentencing killers to death, having sentenced 21 inmates to death row in 2012 alone. As of August 2013, 404 inmates are waiting to be executed, according to the Florida Department of Corrections . All in all, 74 inmates have been executed in Florida since 1976. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

In the first eight months of 2013, more than 1,000 acres of state land has been destroyed by wildfires, according to the Florida Forest Service . But that number is miniscule compared to some big burns in the past. In 2007, more than 123,000 acres of land was burned by the Bugaboo fire in Baker county. (BILLY CALZADA / ORLANDO SENTINEL)